Hawaii: Emergency Surgery, Smoke Alarms, and Other Fun Stuff

Monday was when our Hawaii vacation really became action packed. We started out normal enough. We went out to a nice breakfast buffet. Unfortunately, though, my brother (who had been experiencing stomach pain all day on Sunday) felt too horrible to even come. He stayed in the hotel room in pain. We all hoped some relaxation and maybe some Maylox would cure him.

Simon enjoyed the buffet. He also enjoyed running around and exploring afterward.

After breakfast we headed out to the lagoon for more beach time. Look at these cute brothers.

They got the idea of relaxation pretty quickly. A nice man offered these rafts to us as he was leaving to go home. The boys enjoyed them a lot.

We swam and played and relaxed into the late afternoon when we decided to head to the Dole Pineapple plantation. We took the train ride.

On the way back to the hotel, we got a call from the other car asking to stop at an urgent care. My brother was still in extreme stomach pain, and as a nurse, he suspected appendicitis. We called around to all of our local family and found the nearest urgent care. It turned out that they suspected appendicitis as well, and he was sent on to the emergency room.

By this time, it was late and the boys needed to eat dinner and go to bed. Scott, Kristy, and my parents went to the emergency room while the rest of us went back to the hotel to eat the steak dinner we had planned to cook. Nathan ate Scott’s portion for him.

After the boys were in bed, we got a call from my mom saying that Uncle Scott was going to have to have emergency surgery to remove his appendix.

Really?

What timing!

We went to bed hoping and praying for the best. It turned out that my brother (who is allergic to morphine) also had a really bad reaction to the paralytic drug in the anesthesia. After the surgery, he was not waking up. When he finally did wake up, he was paralyzed. Completely paralyzed. He could hear, but could not even move his eyelids. After about an hour, he said he was able to open his eyes, but still could not move anything else. It took about three hours for his body to regain movement, and even then he was really weak. Kristy and my parents had come home to sleep because they were not informed any of this was going on. Poor Scott was awake and paralyzed for a long time with his family back at the hotel.

Kristy and my dad rushed to his side in the morning, and stayed with him until he was discharged later that afternoon with orders not to work or go swimming until December! So much for a beach vacation!

We spent Tuesday morning waiting for him by swimming. Both of the boys really loved the pool.

Simon’s favorite part of the pool was the waterfalls. Auntie Shaina and Uncle Greg took him through the waterfalls many times.

In the afternoon, Uncle Scott returned to the hotel and we went to visit him. He was tired and weak, and emotionally traumatized from his experience, but was doing ok. After 20 or so minutes, though, the boys just needed to burn off some energy so we took them on a walk back out the ocean to watch the sunset and throw nuts into the ocean.

Then we headed over to my cousin’s house for dinner and more time spent with family. Here is my Uncle Vince playing the guitar.

And Elias enjoying play time with a couple of his cousins.

On Wednesday, Scott was still not feeling well so we decided to take it easy again. We had no problem with that. Swimming and relaxing were what we were most looking forward to. Elias and Simon had a jumping contest at the pool. Elias did some pretty amazing jumps!

Simon practiced his bubbles.

In the evening, we decided to cook breakfast for dinner. Auntie Kristy and my dad were cooking, but I volunteered to take over the bacon so my dad could take a shower. After cooking the first batch of bacon, I realized that we did not have a container for the grease. Kristy ran back to her hotel room to get one, but in the mean time, the grease was smoking really bad. I tried to get it to stop, but the room was filling with smoke. Before we could get it under control, the smoke alarm went off. The hotel staff response was really fast, but the haze remained for awhile.

My poor dad came running out of the shower shouting, ” I leave for two minutes!” No harm was done in the long run, but it was just another adventure to add to our list.

Uncle Scott was still pretty tired, but finally felt up to eating with us for dinner. It must have been the smoke that cleared his system.

With Uncle Scott on the mend, we had plans to head out to Pearl Harbor on Thursday. But in the mean time, we enjoyed a family dinner together.

I still can’t believe all these things happened and I was there! I’m so thankful that Scott was feeling better after a few days and he still got some “relax by the beach time”. The most amazing part is that we still managed to have a really wonderful family vacation!

I am really missing everybody and the time we spent together as a family, but especially missing waiting for the boys to wake up and come out of the bedroom, still partially asleep, to come give me my morning hug!